Thus people reacted emotionally to an event which marked the beginning of a return of sanity. Upon the verities of the case the effect of Cleveland’s act was positive. While the nation raved the malady itself began to yield. That ophidian monster which was devouring the gold reserve began to disintegrate from the tail upward. Presently only the head was left and that disappeared with the arrival of the first consignment of gold from Europe under the government’s contract with the bankers.
The full cure of course was not immediate. But never again were people altogether mad. As the tide reverses its movement invisibly, with many apparent self-contradictions in the surf line on the sand, so it is with the course of events. Between the tail of the ebb and the first of the flood there is a time of slack with no tendency at all. That also is true in the rhythm of human activities.
Historically it is noted that a stake set in the wet sand on the morning after the Great Midwestern’s confession of insolvency would have indicated the extreme low water mark of that strange ebb tide in the economic affairs of this country the unnatural extent and duration of which was owing to the moon of a complex delusion. There was first a time of slack before the flood began to run,--a time of mixed omens, of alternating hope and doubt. Yet all the time unawares the country grew richer because people worked hard, consumed less than they produced and stored the surplus in the form of capital until the reservoirs were ready to overflow.
As for the Great Midwestern, everything came to pass as Galt predicted. Valentine was appointed by the court to work the railroad as receiver. In that rôle he returned to his desk. The word “president” was erased from the glass door of his office; the word “receiver” was painted there instead. That was the only visible sign of the changed status. We paid our way with receiver’s certificates, issued under the direction of the court. Dust settled in the Board Room, where formerly the directors met. Trains continued to move as before.
Life in this financial limbo would have exactly suited the placid temperament of our organization but for the distracting activities of Galt. With Valentine’s permission he took that old vice-president’s desk in Harbinger’s office and began to keep hours. Such hours! He was always there when Harbinger arrived. At ten he went to the Stock Exchange; at three he returned. He was still there when Harbinger went home. The scrubwomen complained of him, that he kept them waiting until late at night. Sometimes for that reason they left the room unswept. Insatiably he called for records, data, unheard of compilations of statistics. He wrangled with John Harrier, the treasurer, for hours on end over the nature of assets and past accounting. Their voices might often be heard in adjacent rooms, pitched in the key of a fish wives’ quarrel.